The Dawning of Night
by Phantazm
Summary: Robocop, free of the directives of OCP and now resigned to his fate, patrols the streets of Old Detroit as the linchpin of the thin blue line. But nothing in the police academy or his programming covered the insanity that spread across the streets of Detroit, rising to engulf the world in a swarm of claws, fangs, and darkness.
1. Chapter 1

_The Dawn of Night_

_Prologue:_

_There is a state of being not quite conscious, not quite non-existent. Unaware yet faintly cognizant. It is the razor's edge of perception that separates being and not being, and into this endless ebon fugue breaks light, a warmth that appeals to the most primal and basic of instincts. The light awakens the primitive mind and it instinctively reaches out to touch, to grasp, to take…_

-oOo-

"And he is online again," came a voice. "Booting up the last routines as we speak."

A mature, no-nonsense face came into view. "Good morning, officer, how are you today?"

_Recognize: Doctor Cora Gutierrez_. "I am well, Doctor, thank you. How are you?"

"Very well, also. How do your systems check?"

_Retrieve initialization logs. Initiate verification. Report._ "My systems indicate full functionality. I will not require recharging or food for the remainder of the shift."

Gutierrez cocked her head. "Sure? You didn't eat yesterday, either."

"My cybernetics bore the burden of yesterday's activity, which was minimal. There was not a great deal for the rest of me to do, and in any case, I had a rather large dinner."

Now she laughed. "I can never tell for certain when you're being sarcastic, Officer Murphy."

Murphy's mouth twitched, the only visible sign of any emotion on the barely-exposed face. "I didn't mean any disrespect, Doctor. But it was a large dinner. I was given a second shift and Doctor Calloway was good enough to offer seconds, as he was uncertain whether or not I would be able to return for maintenance. Besides, I enjoy the blueberry version."

"Here to help, Murph."

Gutierrez cocked an eyebrow at him and the junior doctor fidgeted. "Not on duty, Doctor."

"Sorry, but he lets me call him 'Murph,'" Calloway protested.

"I know, but let's keep it professional. First names if you absolutely must, but nothing affectionate. The supervisors are watching."

Restraints unlatched and fell away from Murphy's limbs. "I appreciate the familiarity, James, but in this case, Doctor Gutierrez is correct. However, I will refrain from issuing a citation this time."

Calloway fidgeted more. "Thanks, Alex."

_Analysis: thermograph, bioscan, cardiopulmonary activity._ "I'm sorry, James," Murphy said, turning stiffly toward the other man. "I didn't mean to upset you. Your bioscan shows you're embarrassed, at least, afraid at worst."

James shrugged. "I'm sorry, too. It's just that, without being rude, I can't tell if your joking or comments are programming or if they're, well, _you_. If you take my meaning."

_Body posture: adjust. Tonal qualities, modify: compassionate._ "They are 'me' as much as anything can be," Murphy said. "I still possess a sense of humor along with everything else I had before my death. It's just processed through different filters on the way in and out. I know you are new, and I expect this of recent arrivals. I'm not offended. I still can be, of course, but not by human behavior."

"Yeah, I know, it's just awkward as hell," Calloway said.

"You should try it from my side, although hopefully you will not have the chance," Murphy said. "You might be surprised at the measures some of your predecessors took to try to understand me or make me more 'human'."

Gutierrez shut down her terminal. "You're talking about Knight, aren't you?"

"Yes," Murphy said. "Which reminds me, James, please do not upload RiffTrax to my onboard memory, and never program me to say, 'Ni!' to little old ladies. That was…embarrassing."

Leaving the two doctors to discuss office protocol, history of Omni Consumer Products' law enforcement ventures, and whatever else they felt necessary, Alex Murphy—Robocop—made his way to the front desk to requisition keys for his patrol vehicle. His duty assignment had already been uploaded and he was dangerously close to being late, which would not do at all.

-oOo-

"_All units in the vicinity of Harbor Hills Marina, respond to the Marina code three. OCP Unit Zero-Zero-One, respond also._"

"OCP 001, acknowledged and en route." _Prioritize, reassess. Conclusion: release current suspect with warning._

Murphy released his grip on his suspect's jacket and maintained a cautious surveillance on him as he slumped to the ground. "I am being called away on a priority dispatch, and will be unable to arrest you. Instead I am issuing you a warning to desist. I have recorded your face and voice and will submit them to the Detroit Police Department's database. If you return to this place of business or are apprehended within one year's time, you will be arrested and brought before a judge, where prosecutors will seek the maximum penalty. Do you understand this warning?"

The man sputtered through a bloody hand.

"I will take that as an affirmative response," Murphy said, turning away and heading to his car. "If you gather your teeth and report to an emergency room in a timely manner, I am confident they can be replaced with minimal inconvenience. Have a good day."

-oOo-

The function of the majority of police units gathered at the Marina was crowd control, which struck Murphy as unusual. There was generally no call for such measures unless there was a major incident such as a fire or terrorist act. _Target. Identify. Categorize: military police, federal agents._

_Of course. I forgot about that._ Federal agencies had the clout to request aid from any and all local civilian law enforcement units, but in the preceding years, it seemed that the feds had given up on anything happening in Detroit and had written the city off as a lost cause. _I wonder what happened to get their attention._

Murphy located and made his way toward his superior, in this case a Lieutenant Hargrove. "Sir, I was told to report here. How can I help?"

Hargrove nodded. "About time. This way. Don't talk to anyone about anything, either on the way in or out."

"That is standard procedure for a crime scene, of course," Murphy said.

Hargrove leaned closer to Murphy. "I don't know if this is a crime scene or not, though. Consider everything you see here classified."

"Yes, sir."

Hargrove led Murphy to a group of men and women in a mix of black suits and military uniforms. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to interrupt, but our officer is here."

To a one, the assembled suits hedged when they saw Robocop. One of them had turned and automatically offered a hand; halfway toward its target, the man had seen who he was offering to shake hands with and was now vacillating.

"Good day. I'm Officer Alex Murphy, Detroit PD. How can I help you?"

It was a Navy officer who answered first. It was unsurprising, since military and police units usually looked at Murphy not necessarily with respect, but with greed. They wanted to make more of him for their own purposes. _I regret not being able to share a smart remark about "unit envy" with a fellow cop,_ Murphy thought. _Or the obligatory jokes about "privates" that would follow._ However, the sailor who spoke to him was a woman, and even had he been fully organic, Murphy would have withheld his jokes out of deference.

He turned off his internal monologue when the lieutenant commander spoke. "Officer, we need your assistance. Our own forensics units are still en route, but we need to move before the scene grows too cold."

"Of course, ma'am. Show me the way."

"First thing we need to get straight is that we are in charge here," a man said, showing a badge identifying him as a United States Marshal. "You and your fellow cops do as we say, and from now on, you say nothing to anyone about any of this."

"He already knows," Hargrove said testily. "You can quit waving your dicks in his face." He checked himself and choked on his next words as the lieutenant commander raised an eyebrow at him.

"It's all right, sir," Murphy said diplomatically. "Dick-waving is par for the course. At any rate, in all my time in the maintenance bay I have seen larger tools."

He strode into the indicated room without a sideways glance, but his audio receptors caught a muffled snort that sounded like it came from the sailor.

The garage had been turned into a makeshift morgue and several medical technicians and investigators were engaged in photography and preliminary inspections. All of them looked up at Robocop's approach.

The lieutenant commander—Robbins, by her name plate—pulled aside a sheet to reveal a human corpse. Hargrove's lips twisted but he didn't retch. Twenty-odd years on Detroit's streets lent one's stomach a little strength. Still, this was beyond unusual. In fact, it bordered on bizarre.

Relaxed in death, the decedent's face still seemed to hold traces of her final moments of anguish. The exposed skin showed very little sign of discoloration. When blood ceased to flow, it pooled at the lowest points and discolored the skin, and it was obvious that this body had bled out prior to decease. Its blood pressure had to have been elevated to have lost so much blood, or perhaps it was solely due to the gaping rent in the body's chest.

Ribs had been displaced, making it seem as if the chest had exploded from within. There was heavy trauma to the internal organs as well. Murphy leaned forward and a bright LED atop his visor lit up. His visual recorders would work in different wavelengths, but the white light was for the benefit of any humans who would be reviewing the tapes. Silently, Murphy scanned the interior of the corpse, then switched his focus to the edges of the wound.

After a few silent moments, one of the assembled suits pressed Murphy for an answer. Robocop was silent a moment while he composed his thoughts.

"The manner of death is unlike anything I have seen before, and after consultation with the databases of Detroit's trauma centers and universities, I have found no references to anything similar," he said.

"It looks like a grenade went off in her lungs," the suit said.

"A first impression, but inaccurate," Murphy said. "An explosive would have caused injury in a more or less even radius. This appears to have been caused by an object exiting the cavity."

"How do you figure that?" a corpsman asked. "We figure something pulled her ribs out."

Murphy pointed to the edges of the wound, indicating the torn skin. "Note the absence of intrusive wounds caused by, for example, fingers or pincers. There is no evidence of bruising, as there would be had something penetrated the skin from the outside, then closed its grip on its target and withdrew it."

"You can see that shit?"

"I can," Murphy said. "Anything penetrating the skin and gripping it would have caused crushing and hence bruising around the edges of the entrance wounds, which is not in evidence. Such implements would have formed a pattern, like so." Murphy placed his own fingers on the tabletop to demonstrate.

"Observe that after the initial penetration, there would be separate wound tracks from the entrance of my fingers or whatever instrument was used to pull the ribs out. As you can see, there are no such marks and no such pattern. In addition, the skin is torn and stretched, both by the ribs and by what I take to be a relatively blunt cutting object. To judge by the entrance wounds on the dermis, the punctures originated from inside."

An EMT mumbled something to his partner a few tables over, and Murphy looked up at them. "Yes, I have, and to an extent, you are correct: I am. I have been programmed with extensive forensic files to include human anatomy and the accumulated data of emergency rooms, medical schools, and combat medics for the last fifteen years. It is helpful in investigating crime scenes."

"Talk to me about blunt cutting objects," Robbins prodded.

"Similar to a claw or a poorly sharpened knife, which aided in assessing the origin of the wounds," Murphy said, tracing a scrape along a bone. "Ripping wounds such as these catch on tissue and drag it open rather than cut as a knife, although there is some slight evidence of cutting. But they appear only on the inside of the ribs, both on the anterior and posterior. There are even marks on the spine. Also of interest, there appear to be cutting or gouging marks on the soft tissue, in particular the heart, lungs, and major blood vessels."

"What could have done that, then?" Robbins asked.

"I don't know, but observe that on the organs, the gouges _do_ cause crushing and penetrating damage," Murphy said. "Both sets of marks appear on opposing sides of the area of maximum trauma, deepening and intensifying as they grow closer."

The corpsman looked closer with his own penlight. "You're describing something like a shear or scissors. Or a bite."

"That is the presentation," Murphy conceded. As his analytical routines ran, the human portion of his brain went into overdrive. It wanted to pump his body with adrenaline and prompt the "fight or flight" response, preferably leaning toward "flight."

Robbins shivered as Hargrove backed away. "That is bizarre," she whispered. "Something _chewed_ its way out of her?"

"I have no data to support such a conclusion, but as bizarre as that theory is, it would fit," Murphy said. "I understand why this must be kept quiet."

"Record everything you see here, audio and full spectrum visual," the marshal said. "Include your analysis and everything you referenced in making your decision. When you're done, come over here."

It took but a few seconds before Murphy joined the marshal. "You and your force, but primarily you, are going to be on call for us whenever we need you. I can't give any details on this, but you are going to be part of our investigation and, if need be, suppression of this matter."

"You have been dealing with this for some time," Murphy noted.

"I can't comment on that," the marshal answered tightly.

"You don't have to. I may be part machine, I may be _product_, but I'm still a cop."

"And as such, you need to follow orders. _Not a God-damned word of this gets out_, you hear me?"

"Clearly, sir. Do you need me for anything else?"

"Send me what you have."

The marshal's cell phone vibrated. "Done. Everything I have seen and recorded here, composed as text files and, where necessary, as spreadsheets, with attendant video and audio files and references."

"Bluetooth?"

"No, sir. I brush daily."

-oOo-

At the end of his shift, Murphy returned to the precinct and downloaded his reports, reserving the classified portions until they could be sent to the appropriate systems. However, copies would remain on his onboard drives—it was only natural since he would need them during the course of his investigation—and whether they were accessed by his electronic systems, his human mind had been itching to dig into this mystery.

Considering himself to be essentially deputized or at least enlisted into the federal government's cause in this matter, Murphy made his way to the archival department. He would be remiss in his duties if he did not continue to investigate.

Presently he stood before the library computer. It had not yet been upgraded to wireless capability, although its storage and processing were somewhat state-of-the-art. Rather, they had been within recent memory. Extruding the data probe from his right hand, Murphy gently inserted it into the receptacle and began painstakingly searching the internet, his own department's systems, and whatever non-classified sources he could find.

It took a half hour of research, but he eventually came up with nothing substantial apart from a curious increase in missing persons reports beginning two to three months back. The earliest appeared to be in the Canadian town of Temiskaming Shores, Ontario, but the newspaper article appeared only once in an obscure online edition of a local newspaper and was not referenced again anywhere else.

It would likely be as well to discard the article, but something in Murphy's head gave him pause, and it was not a subroutine or script. It was a hunch, and he wryly reflected that for all the simplification and modification done to his digestive system, he still had enough left to him to form a gut feeling.

He refined his search and let it run, and when it finished he stored those results, too. Not only did the online article never appear anywhere on the internet again, the newspaper itself posted no further updates. It was as if the paper had simply vanished from the face of the earth.

Now he required some finesse. Infiltration programs began to run, programs initially designed to find their way into criminal networks or to spy on social media (with warrants having been provided beforehand) and Murphy had soon gained access to local telecommunications networks.

Interestingly enough, he found what he had guessed he would: nothing. For a brief while, there had been no records of outgoing telecom traffic from Temiskaming Shores, but it had apparently picked up slightly. He wondered why, then stored that for later reference.

He looked harder, digging deeper and deeper into first law enforcement systems, then skirting around the edges of military networks. Correlating and questioning, analyzing and discarding, Murphy allowed his human mind to wander as his CPU ran its programs.

It was over an hour later when Murphy jolted "awake." His mind had apparently fallen asleep, and it was the signal from his search routines that woke him. They had finished, so Murphy disengaged from the library computer and returned to his maintenance bay, where the second shift technicians awaited to hook him up for recharging and recalibration.

"Evening, Murphy," the first one said. "Hungry tonight?"

"I may as well eat something, thank you."

"Hey, did you really hit Calloway with that 'Knights Who Say Ni' routine?"

"Yes. Why?"

"He actually believed that someone programmed you for that!"

Murphy almost smiled. "I'll apologize to him for pulling his leg."

"He'll get over it."

"He should. At least when someone pulls his leg, he doesn't have to reattach it."


	2. Chapter 2

_Dawn of Night_

_Part II_

It had barely been three days since his summoning to the marina before Murphy logged his next interaction with the federal agents he had first met. It was a missing person report and he had duly logged everything seen at the scene of the victim's disappearance, which was a small, overworked homeless shelter near the riverfront.

There were reports of a large black assailant carting off a fifteen-year-old boy, but given that the sources were intoxicated or mentally ill, very few of the agents assigned to respond gave them much credence. There were smart remarks made about how the perpetrator had been identified as large and black, so now Detroit's finest had _carte blanche_ to arrest eighty percent of the urban population on suspicion. Murphy remembered such jokes; they were staples of his earliest days and likely extended as far back as police forces had been in existence. They were rarely funny and were almost never meant to be so, but were just a means of venting pent-up tensions.

As the flesh and blood police went about their business, Murphy paused. He called up his facial recognition programs and ran across a familiar face. A very familiar face, for all that it was missing a few teeth.

"Lawrence Day, please come here."

"You ain't arrestin' me, motherfucker, I ain't done shit wrong!"

"That is correct. I want to question you about the disappearance."

"Shit, you like all them other white motherfuckers, some nigga says 'black' and you wanna bust my shit."

Murphy paused. "That isn't why I want to talk to you. Tell me about what you saw last night."

"I ain't tellin' you shit."

"Then you may tell a judge as you stand trial for obstructing a police investigation."

Day backed up quickly to avoid Murphy's hand. "If I do, you gon' leave me alone?"

"Unless you break the law, yes. I can make that promise to you."

Now Day's entire demeanor changed. Murphy engaged his biosign scanners and audio recorders. What Day had to say would be important, but so would _how_ he said it. "Like I said, I jus' wanted to go to bed, man, I was tired as shit an' my face was still all fucked up from when you busted me up. I was layin' down an' tryin to get to sleep and the kid wanted to go take a piss or somethin'."

_Analyze: cardiopulmonary rhythms elevated. Stress indicated. Contextual filters enabled._ "Continue."

"He…he went to the shitter but it was locked, so he come back through and stepped past me into the alley, gonna piss out there," Day said. He was beginning to shiver and he wasn't looking at Murphy. He was looking past Robocop, at something he didn't want to see but couldn't turn from. "Left the door open, heard him walkin', then he starts screamin'. All of us got up to see what the fuck, and that's when I saw it. We all did."

"It? You mean 'him,' instead."

"Fuck no," Day said, shaking his head furiously. "Ain't no nigga in this whole fuckin' town that big. Head all fucked up-lookin', huge, carried that kid off like, like, shit, like you was throwin' me around that day."

"Had you been drinking last night, or had you taken any drugs?"

"Had me a forty, smoked a little," Day said. "Same like I do always, but I never saw shit like that before, man. That was some evil shit went down. _Evil_."

Murphy thought. Day was showing signs of fear, but differently than he had before. When he'd been busted, the levels of stress were no more than those of any other perp apprehended in the commission of a crime; when Murphy had approached him today, Day had exhibited similar behaviors. The panic response, however, hadn't kicked in until he had begun recounting the boy's abduction. Day had even admitted to smoking weed without fear of reprisal, which was an indicator of how badly the prior night's encounter had left him. He just didn't care any more.

"Did you see where the perpetrator went?"

"Straight the fuck up the motherfuckin' wall, man, like a spider," Day said. "Went off north, I think. Lost it after it got on top o' the buildin' next to us, anyway, an' I don't care if I never see that fucker again."

"Thank you. If you see or remember anything else, contact me."

"Why? The fuck's in it for me?"

"Your assistance will be uploaded into the DPD's mainframe and will be noted if you are ever arrested again."

Day squinted. "Huh?"

"The flip side to your Miranda rights. Anything you say can and will be used against you, or even to your benefit, in a court of law. I record everything you say and do, and whether you do right or wrong the courts will know."

"Yeah, shit. An' what about me sayin' I smoked some grass in front of you like that? What's that gonna get me?"

Murphy turned to leave. "I do not recall such a conversation. I must have written that data onto a bad sector, if such a conversation even existed. Thank you, Mr. Day."

One of the agents caught Robocop before he left the building. "What did that bum tell you?"

After Murphy relayed the account, the agent motioned to another one, this one a marshal. "The cop's got something for us."

-oOo-

The assembled government agents fell quiet when Murphy entered the room. It was quiet enough that his servomotors were audible as he walked to the far end of the table. When he had taken his position, one of the agents stood.

"Officer Murphy, you are hereby seconded to our unit and as of now, you no longer answer to the Detroit Police Department or anyone in its chain of command. This is a federal emergency and your cooperation is requested and required."

Murphy's head tilted slightly. _Bioscan, analyze. Vocal tones, body posture, eye contact. Evaluate. Conclusion: subject apprehensive, sincere. Negative indication of dick-waving._ "Of course. I knew something was happening when federal agents first appeared at the marina, but I didn't know it was this big. Does it have something to do with the abduction, or more specifically, the abductor?"

"What do you know?" the suit asked.

"Despite being a line cop and not normally being involved in higher-level discussions, I have engaged in some investigation of my own and have come up with some indications that there is an epidemic of missing persons, now reaching international levels," Murphy answered.

"Pretty enterprising."

"My assistance was requested before this meeting," Murphy reminded him. "I would have been negligent to let things slide when it was within my ability to assist."

The agent sat. "Officer, I would like to know exactly what you know and how you found out about it. Afterward, I will fill you in on such detail as you need to know and you will be tasked with your next assignment. Please begin. You can omit the details at the marina; we've all read your report."

At Murphy's conclusion, the agent in charge nodded. "Very good. As usual, this does not leave the room. You are needed on the night shift until further notice. Concentrate your patrols on the area between the marina and the 'epicenter' of the abductions. We need you on foot patrol, where you will be better able to detect, analyze, and engage in any suspicious activity."

"Abductions, sir?"

"I didn't expect you'd be told, but there were three that night," the agent said. "We kept a lid on the other two, but the sheer number of witnesses to the third caught us off guard."

"Perpetrator descriptions? My contact was less than helpful."

At the agent's hesitation, Murphy increased his scanners' clock rates and sensitivity. He felt the agent might be beginning to lie to him, and if this situation were as dire as Murphy suspected, there was no time for lies or liars. But then the agent produced a USB drive and had it passed down to Murphy. "Copy these contents to your own system. Do not copy them elsewhere. When the investigation is complete, if you or these files may be compromised, or on our orders, you are to delete them and wipe the affected sectors to DoD standard."

"I understand," Murphy said, jacking the drive into his accessory port on his left forearm. Almost instantly, his heads-up display filled with a collection of images collected from cameras, satellites, newsfeeds, and internet forums. Some of them had been gathered in calm situations, such as after-action intelligence gathering. Many were blurred, as if taken from on-scene helmet or weapon cams.

"Do you see what we're talking about now?"

"I do," Murphy replied, returning the drive to the nearest agent. "Is North America the only region affected by this?"

"No."

Murphy would have sworn to an ice-cold charge jolting through his nearly atrophied stomach. He had forgotten to check other sources than American and Canadian. "How many other countries?"

"Every continent on Earth except Antarctica. We have reports from Dubai, Cebu, Kolkata, Sevastopol, Canberra…this thing is spreading."

"I will return to the maintenance bay for recharging and maintenance," Murphy promised. "I will also requisition extra sensor capacity and moderate weapons upgrades."

The agent nodded. "We will have teams ready to respond on your call. In the files you downloaded, you'll find the proper frequency to monitor and the encryption keys to use our wavelengths."

Murphy walked to the door. His heavy footfalls seemed to take on an even more leaden tone as they impacted the floor. Perhaps it was just their assembled minds playing tricks on them, but it seemed as though Robocop was now walking under the accumulated weight of an entire world.

However, it wasn't their minds tricking them, for Murphy felt it, too.

-oOo-

_2356 hours. Elapsed mission time, 6 hours, 56 minutes. Sensor contacts, none. Unusual activity, none. Continue mission. Turn left, Traver Street, 40 meters._

Murphy strode down West Fort Street, his sensor suites scanning for anything except human activity. On his back was mounted a riot-suppression package of less-lethal munitions, chemical sprays, and automatic buckshot launchers. His HUD overlaid false-color images of what his UV and IR scanners relayed to him, covering a full 360 degrees. He was in a rough section of Old Detroit now, but his concern was less for criminal activity or personal assault. Indeed, he had been ordered to refrain from his normal law enforcement duties to give priority to his current assignment.

In the years since his activation, however, Robocop had earned something of a reputation on the streets, and his mere presence was often enough to prevent or even stop most criminal activity. When he was in a patrol car, he was nearly always mistaken for just a regular cop and odds were that he would roll up on something in progress. Now that he was on foot, word traveled quickly and the streets calmed around him, thanks to tweets and texts from the civilian population.

Unmarked, nondescript vehicles prowled the streets with him. These were federal and military units, many of them with their own sensor units and many more with dogs. A few ED-209s held posts at the Ambassador Bridge and random checkpoints where citizens congregated.

Everyone was spread fairly thin, though. Old Detroit was the center of concern for now, but Delta City, still under construction, managed to consume most of the available resources. Rank and money still had their privileges, after all. The end result was that Murphy was as alone now as he had been before.

He paused at the waterfront, listening, scanning, contemplating. That the military had been brought in indicated that the President had, with the blessings of the Attorney General, declared martial law and sent the military out as adjuncts to law enforcement. It was curious how such a development had taken place without public notice or outcry.

In the background, one of his processors was monitoring news broadcasts on the internet, looking for more evidence of missing people or unusual activity. If this was spreading on a global scale, it couldn't be kept silent for long, and now that he had a clearer picture of what to look for, he was finding mention on various chat boards and forums of mysterious abductions and strange shapes in the night. Apparently, the silence was breaking.

He turned left again, heading northeast along the shore and toward an unused shipping dock, but he hadn't gone a handful of steps before his sensors alerted him to…something.

He switched to ultraviolet and low-light visual and activated his motion tracker. Away from the bustle of human activity, the hookers, pushers, and drunks, he should be well served by the tracker's capabilities now.

_Possible contact, bearing 344 degrees, indeterminate mass. Negative visual contact, motion only. Negative thermal signature. Mark and designate contact 01. Begin recording._ With hardly a thought, Murphy's sidearm deployed from its holster in his right thigh.

A newer model Beretta Auto 9S, it fired a smaller 5.6 millimeter round than his original issue weapon. With the smaller caseless cartridge, his magazine could hold sixty rounds while being barely ten percent larger than the original. He did not anticipate having to use it, but preparedness was paramount.

"If there is anyone out there, throw out your weapons and step out with your hands visible," Murphy shouted. "Otherwise, there will be…trouble."

_Contact distance twenty meters. Probable mass, 90 kilograms, plus or minus eleven percent. Contact closing._

The taser pods on his backpack extended and aimed themselves at the suspected contact. It was behind a dumpster, and it gained greater detail on Murphy's HUD as it came closer. When it moved into the clear, Murphy's brain froze even as his electronic systems positioned his body to begin shooting.

This was either a slim human in an outlandish costume or the source of the government's concern. Raising the resolution on his visual sensors, Murphy activated the light in his visor and sent an alert on the police and military frequencies he'd been assigned.

The contact, the _creature_, was nearly eight feet tall, part of that height due to the misshapen skull. Six clawed fingers on each hand, a tail tipped with a long barb, no eyes in its featureless face, and more teeth than any land-going animal had a right to have.

Whatever it was, Murphy had his orders and his training. "Stop where you are. Lie down on the ground and do not move."

It continued to approach, its movements sinuous and graceful, not at all like those of a man in a bulky costume. It seemed to be analyzing Murphy even as he evaluated it in turn. "If you do not comply, I will be authorized to use force."

Its mouth opened and its jaw opened wide, wide, wider, revealing another set of teeth behind them. It crouched, which Murphy took as a preparatory action to an attack. The taser probes fired and struck the creature in its chest, but the expected charge did not come and the creature lunged for him.

A burst of fire from Murphy's gun tore into the creature's chest, center mass and grouped within a 1.45" area. _Targeting accuracy within parameters, but approaching outer limits of tolerances. Schedule maintenance and recalibration. _Twitching and screeching, the thing dropped. Murphy kept his gun trained on it.

"_OCP Zero-zero-one, estimating backup arrival in thirteen minutes due to heavy traffic._"

"Understood." _Their response time has improved by nearly one hundred sixty-three percent,_ he noted.

_Additional contacts, bearing 352 degrees, 008 degrees, 009 degrees. Distance forty meters and closing. Mark and designate contacts 02, 03, 04. Targeting._

These contacts appeared to be similar to the first in size and identical in shape. Murphy held his ground and tracked the newcomers as he analyzed the fallen one. Its skin was not skin, but rather something like an exoskeleton or carapace. The ground hissed and smoked where its blood had spilled. Murphy's sensors recorded everything as he wondered how that could happen. There was nothing on the ground except spilled petroleum and garbage, certainly nothing that would cause such a reaction with blood.

_Additional contacts, multiple hits from bearing 190 to 041 degrees, estimating thirty. Mark and designate 05 through 36 inclusive. Withdraw to a more tactically secure position. Transmitting audio and visual logs._

The buckshot launchers in Robocop's back module swung into position. Firing short-cased 2" rounds from 12" barrels, they were designed for use at close quarters, which Murphy felt he would soon be fighting in. He began walking backward toward West Fort Street, back to where his backup, if it arrived, would have light to see whatever these things were.

"OCP 001 to dispatch, request air support and expedited backup. Over thirty assailants present." They already knew shots had been fired, but nobody seemed to be of a mind to hurry anything. _Nonsense,_ he chided himself as his pistol tracked to the right. _Just cop nerves. Backup and quitting time always take too long to get here. They'll come._

His gun fired again, sending rounds into the torso of one of the nearest creatures. The two automatic shotguns on his pack began to bark, sending sprays of lead balls into the massed monsters. The farther ones just shrugged off the buckshot while the nearer ones lost chips out of their exoskeletons and dripped their vile yellow fluids onto the ground.

Murphy kept firing until he was buried under a swarm of the creatures. Unable to fire with any accuracy, he began spraying chemicals from the riot pack on his back. Pepper spray and CS/CN gas hissed out over the attackers, but had no effect. He could hear claws and chitin scratching against his armor and it felt as though each of the creatures was trying to pull part of his chassis in a different direction.

"You are assaulting a police officer. Lethal force is authorized."

The amplified voice came from behind Murphy, and his internal chronometer registered a pause of exactly 0.5 seconds before the air was shattered with the staccato thunder of 20-millimeter cannons firing. At the outer edge of the melee, farthest from Robocop, creatures began to fly apart in sprays of chitin and fluid, screeching and hissing at the intrusion.

Murphy found himself free and able to move as the creatures abandoned him to attack the ED-209. He began targeting the creatures one by one, picking them off of the giant robot that was now beset as Murphy had been seconds earlier. A second ED-209 arrived and began firing single shots at the swarm of monsters, sending rounds dangerously close to its partner unit.

Within moments, it was over. Sirens wailed less than a block away as organic backup arrived. _Just as well they missed this,_ Murphy thought. Examining the gouges in his armor and the ED-209's, he knew that the flesh-and-blood police would have fared much worse than he had they been on scene.

He looked up at the nearer ED-209, saw its plating smoking and looked closer. The metal had dissolved in places, and in others was still dissolving as though it were being eaten by acid. Murphy knew no chemical agents had been deployed to cause such damage, yet there it was. He looked about and saw the creatures lying in pools of their own fluids and it made sense at last. Their blood, or whatever it was, actually was the acid.

Murphy accessed his comm frequency to dispatch a hazmat team, but shut it down before he sent the call. It might attract too much attention and spread the news of this…infestation, or whatever it would be called. It was just as likely that the agents in charge already knew about it, anyway.

As his backup arrived and began to survey and contain the area, Murphy understood the urgency that had defined the suits' every move since their arrival. If these things had been behind so many mass disappearances and were now invading major metropolitan centers, the silence that had held for the last few months was about to be broken by more than just a few threads on conspiracy theorists' chat boards.


	3. Chapter 3

_Dawn of Night 3_

James Calloway, now Murphy's senior attending technician, jammed his finger on the remote's power switch as he stabbed the remote at the offending television, as if both actions in tandem would send an irrefutably stern and intimidating command to the appliance in question. Apparently cognizant of its dire straits, the television winked off and Calloway threw the remote on the desk.

"If I hear any more about this, I swear to God I'm going to steal your gun and give it a blowjob. _Pow!_"

Murphy said nothing. Not only did the comment require no response, he couldn't think of an appropriate one to offer. Instead, he thought. His initial contact with the creatures, the aliens, had been the straw to break the internet's back. The firefight had taken place too close to an uncontrolled populated area and with the blessings of streaming video, much of the encounter had gone viral. Added to that was the simple fact that, within a week, similar incidents had taken place in major cities around the world.

He leaned back into his maintenance chair and ran over what he had learned yet one more time. Perhaps in this replay, he would learn something new, gain some previously unknown insight, or glimpse some magical solution. Maybe it was desperation and despair. Maybe it was because it was all he had left he could do.

-oOo-

_Six weeks prior:_

"So now you know," the agent said. It was the same agent who had been so contentious and arrogant when he had first met Robocop. "Now you understand."

"I understand why you are doing what you are doing, but not so much everything else," Murphy said. "Those things are incredibly dangerous, and, if I'm not mistaken, not from around here."

The agent shook his head. "No. They have no analogues of any kind on Earth, none whatsoever. Only their basic humanoid profile is familiar. Everything else leads us to believe they're purely extraterrestrial."

"Is that the only answer?"

"Yes. Our brightest minds have been working on this, and it seems so peculiar that the aliens were found at nearly the same time," the agent said. "Why didn't we find one batch first rather than have a simultaneous explosion of these things? It's like someone threw a switch, almost."

Murphy had no answer and said as much. "I think it's a little strange that you worry more about the timing than the fact that these things exist at all."

"We have several departments across the world working on that," the agent replied. "Every aspect of this entire mess has the whole God-damned planet occupied in one way or another."

Having been briefed on everything that had been learned of the aliens so far, what had been observed of their life cycle and habits, Murphy could see why that was. Given that the creatures required humans for food and incubation and that the aliens were notoriously hard to track down, plus the fact that they bred quicker than cockroaches, if the alien infestation gathered anything resembling a foothold, they would likely swarm over the globe within two or three years at best.

"I have a question, please," Murphy asked.

"Go ahead."

"Why did you come to Detroit and enlist me and the police department when you have so much more at your disposal?"

The agent sighed. "Desperation. We've been chasing these things down since we first learned of them about three months back. Well, more like two and a half. We were late to the party and by the time we pieced everything together, they had already gotten a head start on us. We're trying to quarantine a living, thinking pandemic that we can't inoculate against or even detect. Anyone infected shows no outward signs until the alien hatches, and if anyone gets face-raped, they never come to the ER with it for fear of…I don't know, being labeled a nut or something."

"How would I factor in to the 'desperation' angle? Your facilities are still superior; you have fully automatic infiltration robots, aerial drones, highly trained military personnel."

"I honestly don't know for sure why the powers that be fixated on you," the agent said. "Maybe because you were the biggest gun on site and were the quickest asset we could deploy, but mostly probably because we could get you on task without raising a panic, I think. Imagine the shit that would start flying if we send a battalion of soldiers into Detroit to root these things out. Panic would be the least of our problems."

"Possibly," Murphy agreed. "But now? What do you think?"

"I can't say. I think this thing is beyond our control now. Wherever we go, we're just picking up pieces. Literally."

"Perhaps you should notify the civilians," Murphy said. "There will be panic when they learn of this, but it might be that if you tell them, there will be less of it. Controlled panic, as odd as that sounds. And they will be more likely to help you."

The agent scoffed at that idea. "Sorry, but you're a cop, not a PR agency."

"Yes, I'm a cop. That means I've seen how people react during stress, during fear. People can panic like animals in a herd, yes, but also like animals in a herd, they can turn and face down whatever is threatening them, especially if they have leadership. You are guaranteed the panic if they learn about this on their own. You have a chance at harnessing their strength if you're honest with them, and if this does threaten the world, you'll need the world's assistance."

"You're not a PR man," the agent repeated, walking off. "Just go patrol or something."

-oOo-

_Present day:_

"It is a shame about Dr. Gutierrez," Murphy said softly. "I will miss her."

"Me, too," Calloway said. "I hope those alien fucks choked on her."

It was unlikely, but Murphy kept silent. A small part of him sympathized with Calloway. The rest of him, distasteful as it was, took refuge in the solace provided by his cybernetics. The computers that had been installed could often override his human emotions, a condition that had caused him considerable misery when he had first broken OCP's initial programming. He had railed—in futility—against the loss of his humanity and had fought as best he could to retain what little autonomy he had. Now, in a spiteful and cruel twist of irony, he had to withdraw somewhat, submit to the computer's control.

It was the only way he could stay focused on his duty without risking his own sanity. Like it or hate it, he had volunteered to become a police officer. He was a cop. Even though his uniform had been permanently grafted to his body, or had more accurately _become_ his body, he was still a sworn officer of the city of Detroit's police department, and he had a job to do.

As his recharging finished, Murphy ran through his daily briefing. His function now was essentially riot control, but his focus would be on the aliens, not the humans. Looters and vandals were of a far lower priority than the aliens. Murphy's shift had been permanently changed to third. The creatures, despite being able to operate without sight or illumination, seemed to prefer roaming and hunting at night. While they would have had ample opportunity to pick off plenty of human prey during the day, they had somehow deduced that they had better hunting when humanity shut down for the night and clustered together in groups, purportedly for safety.

It made harvesting that much easier for the aliens. For some unknown reason, however, there had been no reports of alien sightings for three days.

Six weeks had passed since he had encountered the aliens. His armor had been patched, upgraded, and patched again following several abortive encounters. The aliens died easily enough if they were shot with sufficiently strong weapons. Explosives killed them. Chemical and nerve agents were much less effective. One of the bigger obstacles to killing them was their acidic blood. It did no good to blow them up when the blast sprayed a mist of acid over everything; shooting them didn't spread it so much, but then, when the aliens died, their blood puddled around them, dissolving the floors on which they lay and anything underneath them, or even upon the not-so-victorious human who'd shot it. Many times, the thrashing alien had spread its blood over human defenders, or a lunging creature had died bleeding atop a human with predictable results.

During the day, special operations teams formed of Detroit PD's SWAT units and military units swept each building top to bottom, looking for nests of these aliens. Not all of them returned, not every day until recently. It had been discovered that the aliens not only ate some of the humans but kept some of them alive to breed replacements for those lost in the sweeps.

Detecting the monsters in the basements, sewers, and ductwork of Old Detroit would have been a strain even had the entire Michigan National Guard and state police forces been assigned, but with the global outbreak of alien activity, manpower was at a horrific low and was only getting worse. With each dead soldier, each dead cop or citizen, a new alien was birthed to kill more, and to make matters even more desperate, the aliens could use not only humans as hosts, but dogs, cats, even livestock as incubators.

Murphy recalled one old veteran of the force sarcastically remarking that with those odds, they may as well drop a nuke on the city and be done with it. The silence that had fallen over the briefing room had been awkward at first, laden with the gloom of the gallows, but even that had chilled to grimmer levels when everyone saw the look on the marshal's face. He hadn't said a word, had just turned and walked away. He hadn't needed to speak, but everyone knew the truth of his silence.

Robocop was assigned to patrol the streets solo; aside from the ED-209s, he was the only cop who could do so with any assurance of safety. His orders were simple: to engage and neutralize any aliens he found. If he spotted a nest, he was to call it in and not enter alone if he could avoid it. Saving lives was of a lesser priority, but he was to try if he had the opportunity although not at the expense of his primary mission.

Panicked humans roamed the streets in anarchic mobs, utilities were sporadic in their service, food and medicine and fuel were in scant supply despite the best efforts of relief agencies. Some tried to evacuate the cities—a few even made it—but Old Detroit was under quarantine. Martial law had reared his head in full: drones were targeting vehicles and groups of people attempting to flee. No warnings, no Miranda.

Murphy couldn't tell if it was his own sense of duty or part of his programming that kept him in check. He understood the necessity of trying to contain the alien swarm and that killing a few thousand escapees was less distasteful than risking millions, but it was the killing of civilians all the same.

_Do your job for now,_ he thought grimly. _Recriminations and judgment can be dealt with if we survive._

"Will you need an escort home?"

Calloway shook his head. "I have a ride, thanks." The police department had taken to shuttling their employees to and from the station, as much for protection from the aliens as from other people.

Murphy rose from his chair. "If you need anything, contact me. It's time to go to work."

-oOo-

It was night now, closing in on ten o'clock. Robocop, now in a patrol car, cruised slowly through what was believed to be the heart of the alien infestation. No humans walked here; they had fled or been taken. The barren area was growing daily as the aliens spread through Old Detroit. Delta City, pristine and aloof, mocked Detroit from a distance.

Murphy's sensors worked as he thought. Delta City was being built to replace Detroit, building by building and street by street, and the theory as advanced by OCP and the advertising media, was that as building spread outward, businesses and residents could just pick up and relocate to Delta City's residences and offices with minimal disruption to their lives. They had been invited to "Plug. And Play!" There had been a lawsuit brought by some software company in the Pacific northwest region of the United States, but Omni Consumer Products' lawyers made very short work of it.

Somehow, the derelicts, destitute and alone, did not factor into the new equation at all. In hindsight, there were parallels to the aliens and to OCP. Their methods differed, but the end result was essentially the same. A new environment adapted to suit its new masters, and people would be caught up and consumed by either.

However, he was sworn to protect one from the other, and the city would rebuild as it had before. Sooner or later, they would get it right.

But there would be no rebuilding any time soon, not until and unless the swarm was stopped. Murphy stopped his car and stepped into the street. There was a hint of rain coming and a stiffening breeze shuffled papers and assorted trash about the city's corridors. He adjusted his sensors slightly to exclude the wind and sounds. There had been some indication of activity, a slight rustle or hissing that sounded off. Once again, it hadn't been Murphy's electronics tipping him off. It was his ever-reliable gut instinct.

He focused his gaze down an alley, shifting to infrared. Although the aliens were athermic, giving off and absorbing no detectable heat themselves, they showed up as shadows against the warmer buildings. Changing to low-light, he looked again. The alley was still empty, yet there was still a nagging feeling of something being wrong, or about to go wrong.

"I know you are out there," Murphy called. "Come out and get me. I don't know or care if you can understand me, but if you can, I am right here, out in the open." The aliens had yet to show any signs of being able to communicate, but he had to make some kind of noise to attract them, and there was enough of Murphy left in all the software that he would have felt ridiculous reciting a grocery list or clips from old television shows.

In the back of his mind, he registered transmissions between Army and National Guard units that were preparing to search the refinery area, an area so large that until now, it had only been monitored to prevent movement. Now, with some sections of the city "cleared," they were going to take a crack at clearing the refinery. The mission was a vital one on two fronts: it would clear out a very tempting and highly complex nesting area while it would provide much needed fuel to the city.

Murphy, for his part, continued to patrol the city alongside ED-209 units and one of OCP's newer products, the ID2-4. The unit, termed an infiltration drone, was numbered for the two guns it carried and the four legs on which it was mounted. It was the size of a small horse and was armed with a turret-mounted pair of 5.7 millimeter machine guns. They were too large for residential and some commercial areas, but were excellent for alleys and such areas that the 209s could not enter. That still left Robocop as the only choice for sweeping buildings and other tight areas.

Now, however, with no 209s or ID2s about, would have to enter and clear a suspicious area. Alone. He updated his position and intent to the federal agents monitoring his progress and entered the alley, his weapon slowly covering the area before him. The first tentative drops of rain began to fall.

There was a door about twenty meters down the alley on the left side and another thirty meters down on the right. A dumpster was midway between them, also on the right side. He would check the left-hand door first.

The communications nets came alive with panicked screaming, shouted instructions and curses, halting Murphy mid-stride. A distant, heavy _whoomp_ of displaced air shook the buildings around him. Some of the comm traffic ceased, but the remainder became even more frantic. A human reflex had him looking about for the cause, but his systems updated him automatically. The refinery had exploded, likely the result of a stray rocket or grenade. The aliens had begun to swarm the infiltration teams as they had entered the refinery complex.

Additional comm noise came through seconds after. The aliens were moving across Old Detroit as one giant wave, issuing forth from sewers, manholes, derelict buildings…and alleyways. The two doors Murphy had spotted flew open and black carapaces poured forth, hissing and shrieking filling the air.

An automatic distress signal was sent but Murphy knew he would have no backup, no more so than any of the others who patrolled the streets. There were too few defenders any more. His Beretta began spitting out controlled bursts as he walked backward toward his patrol car. There would be no standing and fighting with these odds, and he knew it was best he withdraw to the precinct or some other human fortification.

His first magazine was empty, and in the time it took him to insert a fresh one, he was engulfed, dropping his gun. He felt the claws scraping against his armor and trying to pull him apart, even as they had that first time, but Murphy was ready for that. He began swinging his arms, windmilling back and forth with fists that had punched through walls. Murphy was as careful as he could be to avoid any impacts that would break the aliens' hide and spill their blood; most of his blows were to shove or throw the attackers away. Where he could, he found himself twisting heads and overextending joints, anything to immobilize or incapacitate without covering himself in acid.

The aliens' inner jaws proved nearly as dangerous as their claws, lashing out whenever there was an opportunity to lunge at Murphy's exposed face. One of them struck with enough force to crack his visor; he counted himself fortunate for once that he was not fully organic.

Rapid bursts of gunfire erupted behind him. Not the cannons of the ED-209, but the twin machine guns of a trio of ID2 robots. 5.7 millimeter bullets crashed through alien carapaces, sending the hissing, screaming monsters to the ground. Others, merely wounded, left Robocop to throw themselves at the infiltration drones. From beneath the aliens attacking him, Murphy saw that the aliens had adopted the tactic of rubbing their open wounds—and the attendant acid—against the robots. What their claws and teeth could not do, their blood certainly could. He had heard that some ED-209s had fallen to what spectators claimed were aliens tearing their brethren apart to cover the giant robots in acid. He had attributed these reports to hysteria, but unfortunately he saw it to be true.

He broadcast another distress signal; coupled with the registered loss of two ID2s, he hoped he would be given priority. Murphy was still struggling to make his way back to the patrol car when aliens near him began exploding in sprays of chitin and acid. Just a bare fraction of a second later he heard the cause: ED-209 guns, set to single shot. The enforcement droids were several blocks away, acting as snipers.

The remaining aliens dropped away from Murphy, though not all of their own accord, and ran shrieking at the 209s. Staggering, Murphy quickly reached for his weapon and holstered it. A warning screen on his HUD indicated some dysfunction on his left arm. He raised the limb for a visual inspection.

It was no dysfunction. Acid had splattered against his forearm, and the only thing holding his arm together was a pair of titanium struts and wires. All else was being eaten away. And then it was gone. Below the elbow, his arm had vanished and the acid was consuming what had fallen to the ground.

A cursory systems check revealed similar problems elsewhere: legs, chest, abdomen, right shoulder. However, his arm had taken the worst of it and his sensors registered the loss of nothing critical yet apart from his arm. As quickly as he could, he got back into his patrol car as more aliens began to emerge from the darkness.

Reflex had him reach for the door with his left arm. "Brilliant." Throwing the car into "drive," he mashed the accelerator and swerved slightly to his right. The open car door struck an alien and slammed shut. _Urgent communication: OCP-001 unit integrity compromised. Alien antagonists outnumber police units in excess of 700:1; withdrawing to precinct for repair and rearming. Units cannot hold this area._

Murphy made his way as best he could to the precinct, dodging as many aliens as he could, striking them only when it was unavoidable. Hopefully he would not crush any of them, otherwise it would be a toss-up between a long walk to the precinct or a short walk to a violent death when the car failed.

"_OCP-001, you are advised to approach the parking garage. Officers will meet you and provide cover._"

As promised, the precinct's defenders were waiting at the gates to the parking area, rifles and shotguns at the ready. As Murphy's car raced toward them, they held their ground and began firing steadily into the pursuing horde of aliens. Murphy marveled that the could hold their positions as he narrowly missed them, even more so that they were so staunch in their defense in the face of the alien swarm.

_I was right about that, at least,_ he thought as he brought the car to an abrupt stop. _As long as we have each others' backs, we can stand up to almost anything._

"Murphy! The fuck happened to you?"

"I was disarmed." The police at the gates had successfully closed them before any aliens could get in, but that was far from the only way into the building. "I have to get to the armory and see what can be repaired. What's happening here?"

The sergeant who had first spoken shook his head. "I got no idea, man. The radio is full of people shitting themselves at warp speed. TV and internet are the same. It looks like these things have just gone crazy all across the world, all at about the exact same time."

"Then there is someone controlling them?"

"We still don't know," the cop said. "And it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if there is someone or not. We got too much to worry about just staying alive."

Which was true, Murphy had to admit. The elevator finally arrived and began to ferry him and a few others to the armory level. At his floor, Murphy exited. He could almost hear the sounds of aliens breaking into the ground floor above him, but those faint noises were drowned out by alarms being triggered.. "I hope my ears are malfunctioning," he said. "If they're not, go do what you have to and good luck."

The elevator doors closed and Murphy made his way to the maintenance chair. Calloway was still there, wonder of wonders. "Murph? The hell's going on out…_what happened to you?_"

"I need a replacement, as quickly as you can get it done."

"What, a whole arm? That takes at least an hour to do it right."

"Then do it wrong," Murphy said. "We're going to be up to our necks in aliens in a few minutes."

Calloway ran to the parts bay while Murphy rummaged around for spare ammunition. All he had available was three magazines. His current magazine was ejected and again reflex got the better of him. He found himself reaching for a spare with his missing left arm.

His lips tightened in frustration. With a little more force than necessary, he laid his gun on a bench and slid a new magazine in place, pushing against its base plate and sliding the gun against a monitor. A little more push, and the magazine seated.

Murphy holstered the gun. Magazine changes would take a little more time now, time he might not be able to spare in the world. There were slots in his thigh holster that held spare magazines for him and if he holstered his gun without a magazine in it, one would be inserted for him. Now he would have to put away and draw his weapon each time he needed more ammo.

But there was nothing to do but accept it now. Holstering his gun, he picked up and inserted the two mags and returned to the chair, taking his position as he always did. Calloway made his appearance, huffing and puffing under the weight of the new arm.

Murphy reached over and helped adjust the braces that would hold and position his arm. Ideally this was a two-man operation while Murphy remained motionless, but such luxuries were things of the past.

"The only saving grace I see is that we don't have to bleed any hydraulic lines," Calloway said, reaching for his tools. "Just disconnect the old one, position the new, recalibrate, and we're good. The time killer is the calibration, and we're not going to be able to shut you down and reboot with the new arm. We'll have to hot-swap it and hope it doesn't blue-screen red-ring shit on us."

"Yes, Microsoft was not necessarily the way to go. Android would have been more appropriate." Calloway barely managed to smile, and Murphy let it pass. Calloway was working as quickly as he could. The chatter was just his way of venting pent-up stress. Murphy turned his attention to his sensors. All kinds of hell had to be breaking loose upstairs. Screams, alien shrieks, automatic gunfire… He could imagine the carnage as the aliens attacked his fellow officers, and he felt a pang of sadness as he thought of the people who had been arrested and were waiting in their cells, easy pickings for hungry aliens.

Suddenly he disengaged the safety restraints on his chair and the brace. "We don't have time for this. Leave it; they're coming."

"You can hear them?"

"It sounds like they're making their way down the stairwell," Murphy said, deploying his gun. "Follow me. Quickly."

Calloway stuck to Murphy like a drowning man to a life preserver, which was entirely too appropriate a comparison for words. Murphy pressed the elevator call button and turned to scan the maintenance bay as he waited. The elevator door slid open silently and Murphy spun to cover it, but it was empty.

As they rode the elevator in silence, Calloway found himself starting at every imagined noise and even some of the familiar ones. He kept his peace, listening and straining for any sign of the alien creatures. Murphy, for his part, presented the appearance of stoic serenity, but behind his visor, his HUD was swirling with information. He was unable to raise anyone in the precinct building, which was unfortunately to be expected. More alarming was the fact that he was unable to contact anyone on the federal or local communication bands. There was far too much panicked chatter on the waves for anyone to pick him out.

"James, we will be encountering difficulties on our way out. Our plan is simple: we will leave the city and attempt to meet up with a surviving federal or military unit in as safe an area as we can find. However, we will be unable to render assistance to anyone we meet. Any rescue attempt would result in our own deaths. It will be difficult, but do you believe you can cope with this? There is no shame if you can not."

"Whether I think so or not, I don't see a whole hell of a lot of choice," Calloway snorted. "Go get your car and I'll see if I can get the garage doors opened."

The elevator bumped to a stop in the garage level and Murphy's gun was out, sweeping the parking area. The aliens had not yet reached it and the police had long since abandoned it, racing upstairs to assist and ultimately die with their fellow officers.

Cautiously, yet as quickly as they dared, Murphy and Calloway strode across the concrete to where one of the department's customized cruisers waited. It was designed specifically to accommodate Murphy's greater weight and decreased mobility and had additional electronics for faster and more efficient communications, for all the good that would do them now.

Closing the door with some difficulty, Murphy took the driver's seat and started the engine. Trembling fingers fumbling with his phone, Calloway managed to access the precinct's computers and trigger the garage doors. The fortified doors shuddered and squealed, then slowly made their way upward; the masses of aliens that had attempted entry had apparently been at their task long enough to tax even doors intended to stop rioters.

And to judge by the swarm of glistening black figures that began to slither and charge into the parking area, they had never stopped trying. Shrieking and hissing, the creatures flooded into the structure, bypassing Murphy and Calloway in their haste.

_They haven't seen us yet, possibly because we aren't moving,_ Murphy thought. _Well, nothing lasts forever._ He gunned the engine and the cruiser shot forward, knocking aliens aside as Murphy aimed for the exit. The windshield cracked into a spiderweb of fissures, but Murphy's systems compensated easily enough: he overlaid a map of the city streets on his HUD to plot an escape route and his visual processors changed their routines to recognize general outlines and shapes rather than definite images. It would have to do.

Calloway's shouts and cries of alarm were shunted to the back of Murphy's mind as he concentrated on driving. He steered toward any areas where he thought the aliens had left even a hint of clear space and hoped against hope that he didn't crush any under the car's tires. He was briefly distracted by the flash of a human hand toward the dash as Calloway activated the lights and siren.

The man shrugged, a half-hysterical smile on his face. "Hey, fuck it, why not?"

"Why not?" Murphy answered, and coaxed a bit more speed out of the engine. The rain made the streets slippery, but at least it wouldn't impair his vision. The broken windshield had claimed a monopoly on that.

They had barely made it a dozen blocks from the precinct before the car couldn't move any more, and Murphy counted his blessings they'd made it that far. Most of the aliens had been left behind, along with some of the car's tires.

Murphy drew his gun. Calloway was frantically looking about for another vehicle to commandeer, but none were in sight. Every motor vehicle had long since been removed from the city either for fleeing it or for use by the federal agencies. "We're going to get out of here, right? We're going to get out of here."

_No, but we will still try,_ Murphy thought. "Head down that street. At last count, there was an aid station north of us." He said nothing about their nonexistent chances to reach it. It was as well to let Calloway have his hope.

Murphy covered the buildings as best he could as the pair moved down the street. With his enhanced audio receivers, he could hear aliens approaching from the direction of the precinct. They were fast enough, but before the car had failed them, it had managed to outpace the swarm.

But there were aliens awaiting them here. A small group slithered from the alley between two red brick buildings and charged them. Murphy's gun spat five times and five creatures fell. A smaller, sharper bark cracked through the air as Calloway drew his own gun, a .380 he'd concealed at his back.

The low-velocity bullet did no damage to the oncoming alien and it required another shot from Murphy to put it down. Calloway glared frustration and panic at his gun. "Worthless piece of _shit!_"

"Stay close," Murphy ordered. "Act as my eyes to the rear. My software is beginning to degrade."

"System's overloading from all the damage it has to track and compensate for," Calloway said, frantically trying to watch everything at once. "Won't be long before your computers crash and leave you with only your wetware."

_Amazing how he calms down if he's given something to focus on._ "That will have to do. Come on. There is a chance we can make the aid station at Hamtramck."

"Really? Who the hell ever heard of making a last stand at _Hamtramck?_ The Alamo of Wisconsin?"

"I said nothing about last stands, James."

"You don't have to. I majored in cybernetics but I minored in calculus. I can do math, you know."

"And you still fight."

"If there's a straw out there, I'll damn well grab for it," Calloway snorted. "Damn, I'm thirsty, though."

Murphy set his optics to scan in infrared, then in ultraviolet, and finally resorted to using his motion tracker. "I can't find anything," he said guardedly, "but that doesn't mean they're not there. That convenience store seems as likely a place as any to grab something, but do it quickly. We're still being followed."

Holding his small pistol at the ready despite knowing it was ineffective, Calloway approached the store as quickly as he could, urgency and need pushing him forward only slightly more than fear held him back.

Murphy fixated on a second story window on the opposite side of the street a few buildings down. It was either a glitch or something had moved there. He zoomed in, trying to focus on the dark window when Calloway screamed and began firing as quickly as he could pull the trigger.

Spinning to face the threat, Murphy extended his gun at the aliens that had slithered out to grab Calloway. His finger began to squeeze the trigger as his HUD targeted the alien to the left. The striker would set off the round at the same time the crosshairs targeted the creature's head and then Murphy would shoot the second creature just as he had the first…

…until Murphy froze in mid-motion. The two creatures were too close to Calloway. Any bullets striking one of them would send a spray of acid over the struggling man and cause even more injury than the aliens' piercing talons were. Calloway was screaming for help, his gun lost. There were no words. Animal terror was the only emotion he could voice.

There was a time Murphy's programming would have sent calls for negotiators,  
SWAT teams, and aerial backup, or he would have deployed less-lethal measures to save Calloway's life. But now, he had no programming to fall back on. There were no subroutines or scripts to run. Years ago he had grabbed a live electrical transformer to purge himself of OCP's restrictive doctrines and they had never been reinstalled; now the only thing controlling Robocop's actions was Murphy's own set of morals. He saw Calloway being dragged into the darkened shop. He knew what would happen to him: being cocooned as an incubator or being eaten. There was no backup, no way to save him.

All this flashed through Murphy's mind in less than a microsecond, and even as his conscious mind registered his decision, his targeting system was already moving the crosshairs to Calloway's head, and exactly as Robocop's design specs and calibrations intended, the striker fired the round at the same time the crosshairs targeted Calloway.

_I'm sorry, Jim. Forgive me._

There was hissing all about him then and Murphy turned to look around. His concerns about being followed were apparently moot, as the aliens had already infested this section of Old Detroit. _How far have they gotten?_ It struck Murphy that he hadn't seen any humans since leaving the station. Even the distant sounds of emergency vehicles and gunfire had faded in the rain.

Shining black shapes began to move in the dimness. Murphy moved to face the nearest group and lurched slightly to his right. He spared a brief glance downward and saw that his right leg had begun to buckle. On a hunch, he tried to trigger his thigh holster and true to his pessimistic suspicion, the holster would not deploy. Now his two spare magazines were locked away out of his reach. _I may as well have all the bad news._

He ran a systems diagnostic. The news was bad, that much he already knew. Now he knew exactly how bad. His systems were running at barely twenty-three percent. Mobility was essentially nil; acid had taken its toll on his leg armor and had worked its way into his internal supports, his "skeleton," and it was only a matter of time before his own weight collapsed them. His left arm was gone below the elbow, but fortune had seen fit to spare his right.

In the back of his mind, as his CPU fought to redistribute power to what few systems still functioned, he mused that for all intents and purposes, he may as well have lost both. He called up his ammunition counter and found a total of twenty-nine high-velocity rounds remained. He clicked the fire selector to "semi." At most, twenty-nine of his assailants would die and very soon after that, he would join them.

His heads-up display tracked signal after signal as the creatures issued forth from their crevasses and hiding holes, hissing and dripping slime. It was odd that the human side of his mind, so long suppressed for the sake of efficiency and execution of duty, was now ascendant. It could have been that the weakening computer was unable to keep control of his brain and the demands of his crippled chassis occupied all its resources.

_And my brain's own clock rate has accelerated,_ he thought. _So much to take in at this last moment._ He could smell the rain, tainted by the miasma of Detroit burning and the long years of pollution, and he knew that one day, with no further human involvement, the rain would fall clear and pure upon a cleansed earth. _But who would remain to taste it?_

The sun was beginning to appear as the shower moved east, promising bright, purifying warmth and comfort, bathing the world in its light as it always had and always would, without regard to whether or not anyone remained to see it. _But who would live to feel its caress on their skin?_ Would—could—any remain to laugh or cavort beneath the yellow gaze of this one tiny star, or had all gone the way of flesh at the whims of these creatures?

Cautious, the swarm made its way toward Murphy. The creatures knew he was dangerous, just as they knew they would eventually kill him, but they seemed to be wary, as if being ordered by some unseen coordinator. They seemed uncertain as to whether or not he had any other tricks to play. He saw their slick black carapaces and recalled how they were born, ripping their way to life through the still-living bodies of their incubators, as though the darkest id were given form by rending free of the purity and nobility of ego and superego.

And they would claim him within less than two minutes. His tracking algorithm, degraded but working as best it could, had long since reached its upper limit of two hundred. _Would it hurt? Is there enough of me left to feel pain, or have I been so completely subsumed by circuitry that I will log only dysfunction instead? And will this make a difference? Twenty-nine dead out of however many millions have overrun this city, this state, the world. I will save nobody's life. I will make no appreciable dent in their numbers. My ammunition will be spent and my life lost…_

…in the name of duty. It was why he had become a police officer. It was what had seen him through the loss of his body and nearly his humanity. Whether it mattered or not in the long run…that itself did not matter. _It is what I am. It is what I do. It is what is _right_. I am a man. I am not product, not a machine. I will defend my city and its people as best I can, futile or not. I am a police officer, and my name is Alex Murphy. _He leveled his gun at the nearest of the creatures.

"Your move, creeps."

_-End-_


End file.
